This works well and it’s not a hill I’ll defend but automatic control of temperature is better when it’s done well. In the UK we have a culture of driving cars with manual transmission and I’ve never understood it when automatic transmissions exist and are pretty good. People wanna feel like they are in control of stuff.
Not sure about the UK, but I know Germany likes manuals because they last longer when you have a lot of hills and mountains.
Oh, there is. I love having a set of controls separate from the passenger side.
I got similar in my pre-lift BMW E46 and I love it. I had also post-lift E46 with buttons for AC, but I prefer the knobs since no need to look at it while driving.
I have this and I will not change.
I want to set my hvac to a temp and let it sort out whether it should heat or cool.
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The only complaint I have with this is that you can’t control which vents are open when you turn on front defrost. I prefer a button for each vent.
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I have that heater/AC unit
Hard disagree with this. Climate control has become a must for me since the early 2000s. Set and forget is always better than fiddling with things. And now my current car has three levels of automatic so it doesn’t go full blast at the beginning, it’s amazing.
Automatic AC is good. Having an accident while looking at which part of the touchscreen the finger has to press is straight retarded engineering.
So, even better argument for auto climate control. Set it once when you first get in your car and are still parked, then leave it. However, yes buttons please. If this meme is about buttons vs touch screen, then I strongly agree with the meme. My vehicle not only has the auto climate, but also it is using buttons. They’re stupid capacitive touch buttons that Hyundai has since switched back away from, but at least they’re always in the same spot and I don’t have to change any screens to access them.
My car still has tactile buttons and it’s a 2018 model. The reason big touchscreens that do everything are becoming more and more usual is because the people want it
I wish my wife understood how that worked. She always gets in, and since the engine hasn’t warmed up yet, the heat doesn’t come on, so she cranks it up to 30C.
Yeah, my gf does something similar, but opposite. She doesn’t like it going full blast so she turns down the fan which turns off the auto. I think if she had the version I did she would actually use it correctly.
Is she still under warranty?
My wife’s car is like that, you set it to 72 and it’ll blast really hot air or really cold air depending on the outside temperature vs inside. I wish it just blasted 72 degree air. I just always use it in manual mode now so its not constantly switching.
I just move the vents so they’re not blowing directly in my face, once the inside temp gets to the set point it calms down.
how hard do you want it? how hot do you want it? where do you want it?
😏
How fast do you want it, how hot do you want it, where do you want it
Let me play devils advocate……
One of my cars has the hvac controls on the screen and it’s usually fine, because it is actually smart. I only need to set the temperature and it remembers that.
For example now that it’s getting cold, I almost never need to touch those controls
- I can preheat through an app (no subscription needed)
- when I start my car, the thermostat is set to 69 (heh heh) where I last left it
- the car goes through a progression: heating steering wheel and seat first, then automatically off when the cabin temperature comes up
- the glaring problem is defroster. Aside from initial heat up I don’t know a good way to switch to that while driving. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be automatic and fails or if there is a shortcut somewhere
My 2018 vehicle has intuitive tactile knobs & buttons. Easy to operate without eyes ever leaving the road. I am grateful.
After many such threads I’ve come to the conclusion that peak car is between 2014 and 2018.
I’m old enough to believe I’ll never have to drive something with a touch screen.
I design touch screen UI as part of my job and I can see no argument for one in a vehicle other than GPS, and for that I have my phone.
I’d cap it at 2000.
Well, got back 4 more and you are pre OBD2 and modern emissions sure, but now you’re dealing with a technically ‘classic’ car and the rust, wear and tear, and parts availability issues that come w it.
2014 - 2018 will get you a modern car without a touch screen or Internet connection, which is what I’m really after.
Physical controls I can use with my eyes on the road, and not a subscription to worry about.
hmm, I’ll have to look at that range for my next vehicle.
for my preferred budget, I’m looking at 2010 to 2015, but that’s mostly because they stopped making economical wagons after that point (Toyota Matrix and Hyundai Elantra Touring are what I’m looking at)
it seems like even in that year range, once you get above the low cost vehicles, they start introducing shitty tech. but I haven’t looked closely enough at things in the last 10 years to see how they’ve progressed year to year, because frankly it’s just more money than I want to spend
Subaru Wagons
I have one right now, but they stopped making wagons in 2010
they have hatchbacks and crossovers/SUVs
2014 Subaru Impreza sport wagon and I couldn’t be happier.
Had to basically replace the entire tans at 80k miles this year, but otherwise bullet proof.
is there a proper wagon in that year? I thought it was just the sloped hatchback style still
tbh haven’t paid much attention to them because every one I see looks just ever so slightly too small
I’ll have to find one to look at, tbh I kind of hate Subaru seats, at least all the ones I’ve sat in
No, not in the sense you mean, it’s a 5 door hatch back. The gold standard was always “Can it fit a sheet of plywood?”, and no not a chance.
With the roof rack it can carry whatever ,including the giant tree that fell on it five years ago that makes me not care if I carry anything on it.
If you have the money, buy the all wheel drive Volvo wagon, it’s what I’m looking at next.
I don’t expect anything but a van to be able to carry a full sheet of plywood, but I can do 3x7 inside my car now, and bought a trailer for full sheets
it’s the 8 footers and general length and height of rear hatch that concerns me. even my outback is pretty low, a regular hatchback loses another few inches and that’s too restrictive on the hatch dimensions
I have accepted that I may need to just up my budget and buy a Volvo instead of a beater-adjacent vehicle
Mine’s 5th gen, so it’s bigger than the one he’s got.
Mine’s also stick. 5th gen (2017-2023) is the last gen with the manual. Other than the WRX and the BRZ, all the new ones are auto only.
Also, 155k, still on the OG 5 speed. Had to put new center diff (limited slip component was not limiting slip properly), but otherwise still good. Yes it has gearwhine, it’s had it for 100k miles now.
'98 and ain’t selling
Yeah, just make them more robust and maybe add more steps between settings.
Fat disagree. No way. Nope. I have cooling seats in 105 degree weather. Ain’t nothing like my balls having a cooking time on the commute home.
With the old style set up I just popped a small ice bag under them
This should be mandatory by law. Touch screens should not exist in cars for drivers.
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However you probably don’t miss the manual choke valve, double clutching, hand winded starter crank, or even window cranks.
There was really no golden period of car controls. It went fluidly from one kind of shit to another kind of shit.
There was really no golden period of car controls
I’m going to say there was and it was around 2010. Like maybe 2005 until 2015.
The BMWs of the E90/E87 generation that I drove in those years are still the pinnacle of automotive achievement for me. They had all the things I needed and nothing that annoyed me. Anything after that started to include more and more annoying stuff.
From 2006-2012 we had decently reliable, simple to operate vehicles, that got not shit gas mileage
I dunno. I had an 03 Corolla that had heated seats and electric windows that held on to gas like a camel with water. Best car i ever has
Yeah, I have a 2012 Civic and I’m keeping that thing until the wheels fall off (assuming I can’t reattach them). The only thing I don’t have that would be useful is Bluetooth and that’s only because they’ve stopped making phones with headphone jacks. I had a much newer model as a loaner while it was being serviced one time and I fucking hated that thing. The only thing I’d consider trading in for would be a light truck with a full size bed but those don’t exist. At least not in USA.
Those little FM transmitter things are better than nothing.
I’m currently driving a low-mileage 2012 Mazda 3 that we have owned since new, and it’s pretty great. It’s a 40mpg hwy vehicle, is fun to drive on the back roads to work manually selecting gears, and I can load 8ft lumber and 10ft pipes into it lengthwise (it’s a sedan too, not hatchback) at home depot while the guys hopping back into their shiny $80,000 commuter trucks watch me.
I think I want to replace it with an MX5 one day. Recent Mazda interiors I’ve looked at seem to have kept a reasonable balance of physical controls along with moderately sized infotainment screens. So maybe a new one could be on the table. We’ll see how the next revision turns out.
That was also the period when the introduction of tire pressure sensors created brand new issue that people never had before.
And in the same day the crime was at the lowest someone still got killed, and the day the stock market rose to a new high some stocks went down.
Just because a problem exists doesn’t negate that it was the best time period
90s civics? I mean they’re all rotting now, but they were pretty reliable for like 20 years.
Or… 90’s Toyota Corolla, there are plenty of them riding around in here.
Perhaps even a bit later. My 2014 F20 BMW 1-series was still pretty great. The facelift model of the same car I had after that (2017 or so) is the first one that started to include things that annoyed me.
Light, rear-wheel drive, cheap to run and even mod, mechanically “simple” (relative to today’s BMW electronics), even slightly overspected.
Fun little car.
Exactly why I had four 1-series since 2008 (E82, E81, F20 pre-facelift, F20 facelift). Switched to a G20 3-series when the 1-series went FWD, and soon it will be all electrical and qualities like “fun”, “light” and “simple” will be a thing of the past. We adapt and move on.
Yes, this really describes it.
Sure, maybe I would wanna manual choke even today … but like twice, that’s it, just for the fun of it (it wouldn’t even work with modern engines anyways).
Also the environment changed, roads, congestion, etc.
You can find great examples from any era.
